Tag Archives: University at Albany

We are thrilled that our new edited book Metaliteracy in Practice (right) was published this week by ALA Neal-Schuman! This book is the follow up to our co-authored book Metaliteracy: Reinventing Information Literacy to Empower Learners (2014). The new book features 9 chapters from faculty and librarians who have been applying metaliteracy in their teaching practices. We really enjoyed the chance to work with such outstanding chapter authors on this project, representing a variety of institutions, including: Keene State College, Washington College, University of South Africa, SUNY College at Brockport, and the University of Scranton. The authors explore metaliteracy practices related to social media pedagogy, the politics of information, nursing education, open and collaborative learning, student empowerment, and learner agency. In addition, ACRL’s Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education is examined in relation to metaliteracy in several of the chapters. The book’s Foreword was written by Alison J. Head, Ph.D., Executive Director, Project Information Literacy (PIL), Principal Research Scientist, The Information School, University of Washington, and Faculty Associate, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University. We appreciate all of the support we received from everyone at ALA Neal-Schuman and we must say that we absolutely love the cover! -Trudi and Tom

In fall 2013 the Metaliteracy Learning Collaborative hosted a connectivist MOOC, Metaliteracy MOOC, which provided a collaborative learning environment to explore a range of aspects connected with metaliteracy. Over 500 people registered for the course, primarily professionals from information-related fields.

We are delighted to announce that this spring we will offer not one but two x-MOOCs, one on Coursera and one on Canvas. First up is the Coursera MOOC: Metaliteracy: Empowering Yourself in a Connected World. Registration for this first MOOC is now open at Coursera.org and the 10-week course will be begin on February 2, 2015. The second MOOC is being developed in Canvas Network with a particular emphasis on Digital Citizenship and additional details about registration will be forthcoming. These MOOCs are open to all, but we expect that many people who are not information professionals will engage in learning about their active roles in our information age, and how they can contribute to these social spaces as informed digital citizens. While our original connectivist MOOC was focused on exploring the theory of metaliteracy from multiple perspectives through our collaborative MOOC Talks, both X-MOOCs are designed for learners interested in putting theory into practice through an integrated and collaborative learning experience.

Our new co-authored book Metaliteracy: Reinventing Information Literacy to Empower Learners (April 2014) has been published by ALA Books/Neal-Schuman!The book features seven chapters that range from theory to practice, expanding the concept of metaliteracy with an emphasis on metacognition, exploring current trends in social media, describing the learning objectives required to support metaliterate learners, and analyzing global trends in emerging literacies. We also present the results of a preliminary survey about metaliteracy and related issues, and then close with two case studies from our own teaching in the classroom and online. The book includes visual models of the metaliteracy framework and the metaliterate learner and several figures in support of our survey chapter. Sheila A. Webber, Director of the Centre for Information Literacy Research at the Information School, Sheffield University wrote the Foreword to the book. ALA is currently providing a sample of the book and Facet Publishing is distributing the book internationally. The new publication is also available via Amazon and other online booksellers. The official press release from ALA Publishing is available as well: Using Metaliteracy to Empower Learners. We are excited about the new book and appreciate all of the interest that has been expressed in the metaliteracy model. We look forward to continuing the conversation now that the book is officially available! Feel free to post comments about the book via this blog or Twitter using #metaliteracy. We will be discussing the book as part of our upcoming keynote presentations and can’t wait for the dialogue about these ideas! -Tom and Trudi